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1. OUR walk begins in Derby Square, where Redburn, a young sailor, has arrived by tracing the path his father took through the city many years before. Herman Melville, who is best known as the author of Moby Dick, based his 1849 novel Redburn: His First Voyage on his own experiences of life at sea. Redburn has made his way down Old Hall Street to Exchange Flags:

"There, leaning against the colonnade, I took out my map, and traced my father right across Chapel-streetcor, and actually through the very arch at my back, into the paved square where I stood.

"So vivid was now the impression of his having been here, and so narrow the passage from which he had emerged, that I felt like running on, and overtaking him around the Town Hall adjoining, at the head of Castle-streetcor. But I soon checked myself, when remembering that he had gone whither no son's search could find him in this world."

Now, walk to the front of the Town Hall, cross the road and head down Castle Street to Derby Square.

"It was getting dark, though the Town Hall clock had only just struck four. But a fog had hung all over Liverpool since morning, and everything was as damp and dismal as it well could be; and now, as evening came on, the fog had settled into a downright drizzle, con- verting the streets into what seemed to Nelly Bates (who was crouched in the shadow of St. George's Church) to be endless puddles.

"'I wish Benny would come,' said she to herself. 'I wonder what has kept him? He said he'd be here when the clock struck four.' And she wrapped her tattered clothes more closely around her, and looked eagerly down Lord Street and up and down Castle Street. But no Benny appeared in sight."

Walk down Lord Street as far as McDonalds, then turn left and walk on to Whitechapel.

3. Horror writer Ramsey Campbell has set many books in Liverpool. One of the most terrifying episodes in his 2008 novel Creatures of the Pool took place here on Whitechapel, where city tour guide Gavin Meadows discovers one of the horrors he describes on his historical walks:

" 'Police,' I yell, 'police,' and then I realise that the lights are the reflections of streetlamps [...] I hurry into Mathew Street, the lane where a cellar produced the Beatles and other Mersey sounds. The cellar used to resound with screams, but the ones I'm hearing aren't down there. They're in Whitechapel."

Take the road opposite the Metquarter and walk until you are standing in front of the Liverpool Playhouse in Williamson Square.

4. Five-time Booker Prize nominee Dame Beryl Bainbridge's first job was at the Playhouse. She based her 1989 novel An Awfully Big Adventure on her experiences: "Sometimes the actors went back up to their dressing-rooms for an hour at a stretch while she and Geoffrey stood in for them, posing languidly at the fireplace or leaning back on the settee, twirling empty wine glasses.

"Behind them a young man with a paint-flecked beard followed the designer about the set, twitching the hem of the velvet curtains hung at the window and rearranging the ornaments on the mantlepiece."

Leave Williamson Square via Brythen Street, turn right on to Roe Street, cross St John's Lane and cut across St John's Gardens to William Brown Street.

5. In Niall Griffiths's 2002 story of a spiralling sexual obsession, Kelly and Viktor, the couple agree to meet at Liverpool Museum, now World Museum Liverpool:

"The baghead girl is sittin on the stone balustrade an staring at me an Kelly, her expression unreadable. I give her a little smile an turn to go into the museum with Kelly. The heat of her beside me. Her presence, thee air she displaces as she moves. I can hear the swish an snap of her denim skirt against her legs as her thighs move within in."

Walk up William Brown Street to Central Library.

6. Historian Tom Baines becomes fascinated with the forgotten diaries of a brilliant young Victorian architect in Anthony Quinn's The Rescue Man (2009), set in the summer of 1939:

"The front walls of the Record Office on William Brown Street were fatly buttressed with sandbags, though inside the somnolent atmosphere of a library still prevailed. A clerk directed him to the relevant department, and after a long wait another assistant emerged bearing three slim quarto notebooks, which expelled a fine cloud of dust as they thunked onto the desk."

Continue up the hill, turn right and walk until you are standing in front of Lime Street Station.

7. In Anthony Trollope's 1875 novel The Way We Are Now, based on the financial scandals of the early 1870s, Marie Melmotte and her maid arrive at Lime Street Station, intending to elope to America with her beau Sir Felix Carbury:

"Marie had hardly put her foot on the platform, before a gentleman addressed her, touching his hat, 'You, I think, are Miss Melmotte.' Marie was struck dumb, but said nothing. Didon immediately became voluble in French. No; the young lady was not Miss Melmotte; the young lady was Mademoiselle Racine, her niece. She was Madame Racine. Melmotte! What was Melmotte? They knew nothing about Melmottes. Would the gentleman kindly allow them to pass on to their cab?"

Continue along Lime Street as it becomes Renshaw Street then turn right on to Newington and continue to Bold Street.

8. Ex-pat Liverpudlian Sybil Ross recalls her father's furrier's shop in Linda Grant's post-war novel The Cast Iron Shore, written in 1996:

"Inside Ross the Furrier's on Bold Street was enchantment, my father's principle distraction. The frozen wasteland of North American brought us mink, beaver, muskrat, opossum, ermine, silver fox, blue fox, red fox, white fox, racoon, otter, sable, lynx, seal and wolverine."

Cross Bold Street, walk down Slater Street opposite, turn right on to Parr Street until you come to Wolstenholme Square.

9. This is where 90s superclub Cream was based at Nation nightclub. Kevin Sampson describes the phenomenon in his 2002 novel Clubland:

"Students are signing up for Liverpool University in their droves you know, and thousands of them are citing Cream as the reason they want to come to Liverpool. There's the Beatles, there's Liverpool Football Club and now there's Cream - the third grace."

Walk down Gradwell Street, turn right on to Hanover Street and continue until you reach the Hanover Hotel on the right.

10. In Clive Barker's epic adventure of the imagination Weaveworld (1987), there are creatures of unspeakable terror hiding out at the Hanover Hotel:

"As Immacolata crossed the width of heat-raddled pavement between the steps of the hotel and the shaded interior of Shadwell's Mercedes, she suddenly let out a cry. Her hand went to her head, the sunglasses she always wore in the Kingdom's public places falling from her face [...]

"'Too bright,' she murmured, and stumbled back through the swing-doors into the vestibule of the hotel. It was deserted. Shadwell came in swift pursuit, to find Immacolata standing as far from the door as her legs would carry her. The wraith-sisters were guarding her."